Jeremiah Babe, 7/20/24
"You May Not Get A Paycheck This Month,
Debt Is The Greatest Danger To Fear"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
Saturday, July 20, 2024
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top right).
Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of the youngest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20's, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. In fact, M21's stars are much older, about 8 million years old.”
Chet Raymo, “The Sound And Fury”
“The Sound And Fury”
by Chet Raymo
“Not so long ago, I mentioned here Himmler and Heydrich, two of Hitler's most terrible henchmen. A friend said to me: "If there's no afterlife, no heaven or hell, then those two diabolical creatures got away with it. Their fate was no different than that of any one of their victims, an innocent child perhaps." And, yes, if there is no God who dispenses final justice, then we are left with an aching feeling of irresolution, of virtue unrewarded, of vice unpunished. Heydrich was gunned down by partisan assassins, and Himmler committed suicide a few hours before his inevitable capture, both fates arguably less tragic than that of their victims. How much more satisfying to think that the two mass murderers will spend an eternity in hell, while their victims find bliss.
This may not be a logically consistent argument for the existence of God, but it is certainly compelling. My friend says: "If there's no afterlife, then it's all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Of course, this emotive argument for the existence of God is balanced by another argument against his existence – the problem of evil: How can a just and loving God allow the existence of a Himmler or Heydrich in the first place. Here the argument is not just emotional, but consists of a thorny contradiction.
It comes down, essentially, to head vs. heart - what we would like to be true with all of our heart, vs. what our head tells us is an unresolvable conundrum. So each of us decides: To follow our hearts and make the blind leap of faith, or to follow our heads and learn to live with the sound and the fury. For those of us who choose the second alternative, the relevant words are that distressing coda, "signifying nothing." Our task is one of signification, of finding a satisfying meaning this side of the grave.
For many of us, that means finding our place in the great cosmic unfolding, and of recognizing that our lives are not inconsequential, that by being here we jigger the trajectory of the universe in some way, no matter how small, and preferably for the good and just. Yes, we make a leap of faith too, I suppose - that love, justice, and creativity are virtues worth living for- but at least it is a leap of faith that is not into the unknown, does not embody logical contradiction, and is consistent with what we know to be true, or at least as true as we can make it.”
"When One Cannot Be Sure..."
"When one cannot be sure that there are many days left, each single day becomes as important as a year, and one does not waste an hour in wishing that that hour were longer, but simply fills it, like a smaller cup, as high as it will go without spilling over."
- Natalie Kusz
"None Of You Seem To Understand..."
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“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.” - Erich Fromm
"I often question my sanity. Occasionally, it replies."
- Darynda Jones
"Never..."
“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest - forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”
- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
○
Freely download "The Origins of Totalitarianism" here:
"Death in the Afternoon"
"Death in the Afternoon"
by Joel Bowman
"To be immortal is commonplace; except for man,
all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death;
what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is mortal."
~ Jorge Luis Borges
"Everything is illuminated against its opposite; truth against fallacy; light against darkness; life against death. And who would have it any other way, even if they could? What would life on this mortal coil be, for instance, without the eternity of its terminally mysterious counterpoint?
If there exists a perfect setting for these and associated meditations, it must surely be the magnificent Recoleta Cemetery, located right here in Buenos Aires. On any given weekend, this sacred resting place for thousands of the city’s most famous – and infamous – people is found to be one of the liveliest places in town. Notable interments include a who’s-who list of Argentine writers, painters, poets, musicians, scientists and luminaries from other noble fields of interest. And, because nothing, including death, is beyond the law of equilibrium, a handful of politicians also rot underfoot.
Tourists pour in to adorn Maria Eva Duarte de Perón’s grave with flowers, for instance, bypassing the resting place of a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and a dozen honest writers to do so. Other, temporary attendees pose with Colgate smiles to have their picture taken beside weeping cement angels, frozen, as they are, in a state of perpetual sorrow. Young boys give the “peace” symbol next to the generals’ tombs whose armies laid to waste to tens of thousands of men, not much older than they, the bodies of whom are long forgotten, their makeshift graves unmarked.
Nowhere does irony live a fuller life than in a cemetery. Walking among the deceased, reading bookend dates on the bronze plaques, one is reminded of the finite nature of all things; organisms, currencies, political regimes, class structures. When the cemetery was constructed, back in 1822, it must have been a good ride from the exclusive barrios of San Telmo and Montserrat. The rich probably wouldn’t have been caught dead around the grounds of the Monks of the Order of the Recoletos, nor near the shabby, patchwork graveyard that was built there the same year the group disbanded.
Half a century later - and with Argentina still reeling from the War of the Triple Alliance and its own, subsequent civil war - a yellow fever epidemic tore through the capital city. Its wealthier, southern quarters were among the worst hit areas. Death toll estimates range from thirteen to twenty-five thousand. The clase alta packed up and moved north, largely into and around the Recoleta barrio. As such, the marbled vaults came to be populated with members of this same aristocracia, who, though they escaped the fever, came to rest here eventually just the same.
Today, you could buy an entire building in San Telmo for the same price as some of the finely appointed homes in Recoleta. An entire block in Montserrat might go for half that much.
And so it goes. People die…cities and empires crumble to the ground…and time, indifferent to the fleeting anguishes and triumphs of men, presses on.
At the turn of the 20th century, Argentina was ranked as the 8th most prosperous nation on earth. Only Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and a handful of former English colonies - including the United States – were more favorably positioned, economically. In 1913, Argentina’s bustling, cosmopolitan capital, Buenos Aires, had the thirteenth highest per capita telephone penetration rate in the world. Her per capita income was, around this time, 50% higher than in Italy, almost twice that of Japan and five times greater than its northern neighbor, Brazil. Argentina’s industry churned out quality textiles and leading edge, refrigerated shipping containers carried her prized beef, first introduced in 1536 by the Spanish Conquistadors, from the fertile plains of the pampas to the farthest reaches of the known world.
As the century wore on, protectionist policies at home and increased competition from the export-led, post-WWII economies – particularly from Japan and Italy – undermined Argentina’s international advantage. From 1900 through to the beginning of the new millennium, Argentina’s real GDP per person grew at a rate of 1.88% per year. Brazil outpaced her handily, clocking a 2.39% annualized growth rate. Japan, starting with a real GDP per person of just over $1,500 (2006 dollars) at the turn of the twentieth century, grew an average of 2.76% per year. By the middle of last decade, Japan’s real GDP per person had doubled that of Argentina. By 2020, it was more than quadruple.
The phenomenon is so conspicuous, the local Argentines even have a joke for it. “There are four types of countries in the world,” they lament. “First world. Third world. Japan, where nobody can figure out how they did so much with so little. And Argentina, where nobody can figure out how we did so little with so much.”
War, currency debasement, civil unrest, military rule and the catalyzing agent of political aspiration, harbored by the equally corrupt and inept, all conspired to stultify this once-proud nation’s potential. The great Argentine poet and essayist, Jorge Luis Borges, described one such retarding factor with characteristic flare and wit: “The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.”
On a comfortable Sunday afternoon in late February, an elderly group of well-dressed gentlemen met at their favorite restaurant, right by the gate to the Recoleta Cemetery, for lunch. They took a table outside, one in the shade and with a view of the passing foot traffic. The waiters, having brought the regulars the same thing, more or less, every Sunday for as long as they could remember, immediately set about filling their table. There was bife de lomo and chorizo sausages, mozzarella and buffalo tomatoes and papas fritas by the pile. Rich, Argentine Malbecs and Cabernets flowed freely and the merriment of the group soon became infectious. They flirted with the pretty waitresses and joked with patrons at the nearby tables.
After more than a few bottles, one of the gentlemen got chatting with an Australian editor of no particular importance. “I am a judge here,” he eventually told the younger man. “My friends and I have seen it all in this city…riots, economic crises, war, people’s entire life savings wiped out overnight.”
One of his friends lent over and placed a knowing hand on the judge’s shoulder. “Today, we enjoy the moment,” he said to his lifelong friend, before adding, one long finger pointed over the cemetery wall, “because tomorrow…ha ha…well, you know our next stop old man.” And the table erupted in laughter, as the sun set over the angel’s heads in the background.
Cheers,"
"Every Normal Man..."
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
- H. L. Mencken
"The War Can Only End With More War"
"The War Can Only End With More War"
by The Good Citizen
"The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting
each other – instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”
- Edward Abbey
"The youngbloods cry out with screams of mercy while prone in the sunflower fields of Lugansk. “The Cauldron is forming and soon we’ll be surrounded! When does it end!?” The big blue sky above ignores them. A nearby Azov officer hears them ask to surrender. Two by two the screamers get taken to the shallow side of a slope and shot in the back of the head. Final thoughts while gazing out to the horizon to take in their last breath: my death is happening because it was entirely preventable.
The entirely preventable war can only end with more war. The entirely preventable deaths can only end with more death. NATO’s orders. It was always going to end the way we know it will end. With more war.
The only thing they’re trying to prevent now is any narrative that undermines their aims to prevent it from ending. They say World War One was fought for reasons nobody really knows. The death and devastation were so unfathomable, so inconceivable, it was to be the war to end all wars. As long as people believe only war can end wars, then the war will only end with more war.
This war is being fought for reasons nobody with a functioning brain really believes. Democracy? Freedom? Insert all the laughing, crying, rolling on the muddy death fields of Ukraine emojis in the digital universe, plus all the facepalms, and pregnant men facepalms.
Forget the Nazis, the Oligarchs, the cocaine comic, the NATO clowns, the American empire war complex, the district of corruption, the demented diapered one, the EU tyrants begging for economic and energy catastrophes a la carte.
They all stand to gain from the blood of young Ukrainians, from their sacrifice for a set of conditions that were never going to be met even when all the world knew it before a single shot was fired. They played Russian roulette with a country and most people celebrating its sacrifice for global evil can’t point to it on a map. They all cry out in unison like one mindless drone across the earth: “Keep dying youngbloods! The war will only end with more war!”
Now we can see the wave rising at the border of Poland and Ukraine, on the horizon set for a prearranged destiny that nobody wants besides those with nothing to risk. All their instruments of war crossing the border will ensure that the war will surely end with more war.
You can see the wave of youngbloods across the muddy fields. They wore their boots out running for the Oligarchs safely in London. They were there in late February, forced to stay and fight. The young men in cheap nylon ski jackets, trapped in their national prison, kicked off the trains, stopped at the borders, told to go and die for the Oligarchs safely on their yachts in Monaco.
“Putin is evil young man, don’t you know that?” The youngbloods nod in agreement and move their gaze toward the ground utterly disgusted with themselves for nodding and not asking, “Why?”
The baby-faced boys of Kyiv fresh from their gaming chairs and Uber Eats delivery routes. Once giddily bouncing from school classes to casual conversations at cafes that young people have. A rifle stuffed into their hands, three days of performative training, and a swift shove to the meat grinders. Forcibly conscripted into the NATO death machine.
The war must continue and will only end with more war. Five hundred million for more war. Seven hundred million. Do I hear eight hundred million? Do I hear nine hundred? 44 billion?
There’s money to wash through the national laundering operations pouring forth from the U.S. Department of treasury like a fire hose plugged into the central bank of the fourth most corrupt country on earth. Too many pockets need lining before the youngbloods can be called back home from the fronts.
All wars really end with a negotiated peace. Not this one. The word peace is forbidden. So is the word diplomacy.
Even when Russia has mopped up the final villages for liberation in the Donbas and taken Odessa in the south, and the final Ukrainian Nazis are rounded up for trials and detention and a decade henceforth after all regions are flying the Trikolor flag, the Americans will be finding more weapons to send and demanding the comic find more youngbloods to sacrifice.
Their mothers and sisters sit in Polish and German refugee shelters, waiting for news. That dreaded news that no mother ever wants. It’s the waiting that’s most painful. The mothers know the Oligarchs agreed to the war. And the mothers know that western powers created the war. And the mothers know that the cocaine comic who ran on a peace mandate acquiesced to the war before showing his bloody fangs to the parliaments of the world begging for more weapons of war and more money and more cocaine and claimed “democracy” was at stake, as he was told.
And the mothers know it will be their sons who die for the Oligarchs, the western war powers, and the cocaine comic. They all dreamed of riches that could be justified by making Russia suffer and turning half of Ukraine into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The mothers know their sons will be the ones to make their dreams come true.
And if they don’t know all this now, they will know it very soon one day after they get that call. And start asking questions. Why did my son have to die for this? Didn’t his dreams ever matter? How about my dreams for him?
It’s been two years in the fields, on the trucks, in the bombed-out concrete ruins of old brutalist apartment blocks, now gone forever. The only silver lining of the war. Thousands of youngbloods are already dead. (600,000 dead Ukrainian troops, 80,000 dead Russians.)
The living youngbloods are skinny, thirsty, tired. Their boots are worn down at the toes and heels. They haven’t showered for weeks. An American colonel yells orders at them with a southern drawl they can barely understand.
Soon the war will heat up. The eastern cauldrons will form. The Russians will surround them. The supply lines will grow thin and then stop and even with no water, food, or ammunition left to fight, the commands will come over the radios to the youngbloods of Ukraine, “The war will only end, with more war. Hold your positions.”
And the youngbloods who were conscripted into the NATO-CIA meat grinder will one day find themselves on some godforsaken pile of unfarmed dirt. They will look to their right flank and see Nazi hooligans that bullied and beat them at school and threatened to shoot them in the back if they deserted. Then to their left flank and see the pink flicking uvula of a screaming American Colonel they cannot comprehend, and in that moment of chaos and confusion and inevitable madness that they were forced into, they will grab their unloaded rifles and charge the Russian line.
A newfound burst of energy propels their skinny legs forward directly to the phalanx of Chechen warriors, eager to get their bayonets into Azov hearts. The youngbloods are racing, they’re in it, they’re moving now, they’re getting there. They haven’t felt more alive since they were told to die.
Their faces light up with smiles as they confront the inevitable, which finally makes sense as they meet it on their own terms, in their own way. As they hear the first cracks of Russian bullets overhead they turn to one another with the only sane weapon they have left and burst out in fits of raucous laughter. As youngbloods do."
"No Smooth Road; Benedicto"
"Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere
of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps,
till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself."
- W. C. Doane
o
"Benedicto"
"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."
- Edward Abbey
The Poet: T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
"The Hollow Men" (read by Tom O'Bedlam)
"My Favorite Poem"
by Craig Boehman
"I’ve been experimenting with several of the AI platforms, attempting to learn all that I can about how the systems work and how to produce the best images from the prompts that I provide. My favorite platform is Midjourney, which is what I used to create the images for this poem. It’s a relatively straight-forward process over all, but there is a bit of learning when it comes to some of the finer aspects of telling AI exactly what it is that you want. Whether then AI can actually provide you with your desired results is another issue altogether, as I’ve discovered first-hand over the past week.
Which brings me to "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, my favorite poem. I thought what better way to put Midjourney’s AI to the test? Surely, not even artificial intelligence can handle all of Eliot’s lines in a cohesive manner. I found this to be true. But in some cases, the visuals came pretty close to matching a visual interpretation of the lines. I’ll let you be the judge though.
For each of the images below, the corresponding lines from the poem were fed into the bot as prompts, exactly as written, no other commands given except to make the images all in a 3:2 ratio. Other than that, you’re seeing only the results from Eliot’s own words."
"The Hollow Men"
I
We are the hollow men,
We are the stuffed men,
Leaning together,
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless,
As wind in dry grass,
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.
Shape without form, shade without color.
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom,
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Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom,
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging,
And voices are
In the wind’s singing,
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom.
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field,
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom.
III
This is the dead land,
This is cactus land.
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom,
Waking alone,
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness,
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here,
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars,
In this hollow valley,
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech,
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual starm
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom,
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear,
Prickly pear prickly pear,
Here we go round the prickly pear,
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality,
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.
For Thine is the Kingdom.
Between the conception
And the creation,
Between the emotion
And the response,
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long.
Between the desire
And the spasm,
Between the potency
And the existence,
Between the essence
And the descent,
Falls the Shadow.
For Thine is the Kingdom.
For Thine is,
Life is
For Thine is the...
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper."
- T. S. Eliot
"Life Is Hard?"
"Life is hard? True - but let's love it anyhow,
though it breaks every bone in our bodies."
- Edward Abbey
"When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard,"
I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
- Sydney Harris
"Oh, How It Really Is"
"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
- Morpheous
“The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real.
No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
- Hunter S. Thompson
Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s Time For Joe To Go"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 7/20/24
"It’s Time For Joe To Go"
The rumblings are getting louder for Joe Biden to step down.
Do you think it’s time for him to go and let someone else run?
Comments here:
"Not A Plane In The Sky! Cash Only Stores! Hospitals, Banks, Flights All Affected!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 7/20/24
"Not A Plane In The Sky! Cash Only Stores!
Hospitals, Banks, Flights All Affected!"
Comments here:
o
"Let’s Talk About…the Global Computer Crisis"
Excerpt: "A massive outage of Windows-based computers has impacted systems all over the world. Doctors’ surgeries, airlines, train stations, television stations, payment platforms – virtually all sectors of human society have been impacted. Traffic is backing up, flights are grounded. So far Microsoft is blaming a “third party”, and ruled out a cyber attack. In fact, the “third party” has been named as CrowdStrike, a company specializing in safe-guarding systems against cyber attacks. So that’s either highly ironic…or something else."
Full article is here:
"The “Blue Screen Of Death” Could Throw The Global Economy Into A State Of Chaos For Weeks"
"The “Blue Screen Of Death” Could Throw
The Global Economy Into A State Of Chaos For Weeks"
by Michael Snyder
"It has become glaringly obvious that we are way too dependent on our computers. The “largest IT outage in history” has thrown the entire global economy into a state of chaos, and we are being told that it could take “weeks” to fully recover. Countless flights have been canceled, hospital services have been disrupted, online services are down for a number of big banks, and we are being told that millions of workers may not receive paychecks this month. If a single software “glitch” can cause this much insanity, what would happen if the Internet was suddenly not available for an extended period of time?
A lot of people initially speculated that a cyberattack may be happening, but the truth is that virtually all of the chaos that we have been witnessing was caused by a CrowdStrike update…"The issue was caused by a technical problem that global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said it had identified in its software and was working to resolve. CrowdStrike provides antivirus software to Microsoft for its Windows devices. “Earlier today, a CrowdStrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of IT systems globally,” Microsoft said in a statement to CBS News."
To me, this is yet another example of the rampant incompetence that is plaguing our society today. Didn’t anyone test this update before they released it to the entire world? The CEO of CrowdStrike says that the issue has been identified and the problem has now been fixed…"In a statement, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the issue had been identified and a solution was being implemented. He added that “this is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t going to do much good for users that are now dealing with the infamous “Blue Screen of Death”…"The notorious Blue Screen of Death is popping up everywhere, from banks to supermarkets and media outlets, causing widespread panic and confusion. All United, Delta and American Airlines flights were grounded amid the chaos."
According to one expert, if you are repeatedly getting the “Blue Screen of Death” right now there “is not a huge amount you can do”…"Mr Pardo continued: “Unfortunately, there is not a huge amount you can do if your computer has the blue screen of death. Computer users will need to wait for their IT team to resolve the issue, and many people may need to work from their phone or use a pen and paper in the meantime. This is a wake-up call for all the companies that have been floored by this attack. Organizations need to urgently review their disaster recovery plans to make sure they can deal with such problems.”
This tech disaster has already caused tremendous supply chain disruptions all over the planet, and CNBC is reporting that it could take “days or even weeks” to completely resolve this crisis…"The CrowdStrike software bug that crashed Microsoft operating systems and caused the largest IT outage in history caused disruptions at U.S. and global ports, with highly complex air freight systems suffering the heaviest hit, according to logistics experts, as global airlines grounded flights.
“Planes and cargo are not where they are supposed to be and it will take days or even weeks to fully resolve,” Niall van de Wouw, chief air freight officer at supply chain consulting firm Xeneta, said in a statement shared with CNBC. “This is a reminder of how vulnerable our ocean and air supply chains are to IT failure.” We certainly didn’t need this right now, because our economic numbers have already been heading in the wrong direction quite rapidly.
Meanwhile, the airline industry has been thrown into a state of complete and utter chaos…"Over 1,800 flights had been canceled within, into or out of the U.S. as of Friday morning, and more than 5,000 others were delayed, according to the flight tracking service, FlightAware. Globally, more than 28,000 flights were delayed early Friday." I feel so badly for those that are stuck at an airport at this moment. If you are one of those people, you might not get to where you are supposed to go for a while.
This IT outage has also forced the cancellation of surgeries all over the nation…"Gary Baulos in woke up at 3:30 a.m. on Friday for open heart surgery to fix eight blockages. A call from the hospital in Paducah, Kentucky, soon altered his plans. The procedure would be rescheduled because of a global technology outage that was derailing operations. The 73-year-old retiree made the best of the situation, grabbing a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes at an IHOP before heading home to Marion. “I guess I’ll do it some other time,” he said."
Not everyone was as sanguine. Lydia, who asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons, had her surgery at the University Hospital of Maryland canceled. A waiting room full of patients and family members all got the news that operations were being placed on hold. Were there people that died because they couldn’t get the care that they needed? I hope not.
We are also being told that “millions” of workers may not receive paychecks this month because so many systems are down right now…"Millions of workers are at risk of not receiving their paychecks this month amid a global outage that could last weeks. Several of America’s biggest banks saw their systems crash this morning, preventing people from accessing their accounts or receiving or sending money."
If you are supposed to get a paycheck on Friday, you are probably at greatest risk. The CEO of the Global Payroll Association says that her organization has “received complaints from a number of clients who couldn’t access their payroll software because of the outage”…"The Global Payroll Association (GPA) warned that people ‘risk going without their wages’ because their employers or banks rely on CrowdStrike for cybersecurity protection."
It remains unclear how widespread the payroll disruption is, but Melanie Pizzey, the founder and CEO of GPA said her company had received complaints from a number of clients who couldn’t access their payroll software because of the outage. Payroll systems typically need to be notified of any issues that would stop direct deposits from going through at least two days before the payday for the issue to be resolved in time.
This certainly isn’t the end of the world, but it is yet another example that shows how incredibly vulnerable we are. I think that life was much simpler when we all relied on pen and paper. Sadly, this is the world that we live in now, and much more chaos is on the way."
Friday, July 19, 2024
"Crooks’ Unbelievable Path To The Roof"
Full screen recommended.
Dr. Chris Martenson, 7/19/24
"Crooks’ Unbelievable Path To The Roof"
o
o
"Illuminating Inconsistencies and Addressing
Anomalies in the Trump Assassination Attempt"
11 Shots fired | 3 Different Locations | Patsy | Eyewitness Accounts |
Video Proof | 3 Letter Agencies | Lies, Coverups, Betrayal |
All You Need to Know NOW & What Really Happened in Bethel Park, PA
by Dr. Robert W. Malone
"This article begins with the “official story” of the assassination attempt on the life of President Trump on July 13, 2024. The information contained herein is as of July 19, 2024.
"THE OFFICIAL STORY: Six days ago, on July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old Gen-Zer with an associate’s degree, somehow masterminded an assassination attempt on President Trump. Armed with just 10 days of planning, Crooks loaded a handmade explosive device (with remote detonator) into his car, went to Home Depot, picked up a ladder, then picked up some ammo and drove from Bethel Park, PA to the Trump rally in Butler, PA.
He parked his car, with an explosive device in the trunk no less, and hauled his ladder and AR-15 to a warehouse just a few hundred feet from Trump’s podium. Meanwhile, a three-man counter-sniper team was cozy on the 2nd floor of that same warehouse, setting up through the window. Multiple bystanders, police, and the Secret Service all saw Crooks as he strolled to the warehouse, even caught on film wandering around and looking up—but nope, no red flags there.
One of the law enforcement officers stationed in the warehouse saw Crooks “scoping out” the roof with a rangefinder. There’s nothing suspicious about that, right? Maybe Crooks was using the rangefinder to improve his golf swing. He left and then returned with a backpack, the officer took a picture of him and radioed the sightings to the command center, but they somehow “lost track” of him. According to the Senate briefing on the assassination attempt, 62 minutes elapsed between the time Crooks was photographed as suspicious and when he fired the shots…
That’s right … Despite being on the Secret Service's radar for 62 minutes, they somehow “lost track” of him. Yes, they lost track of a guy with a range finder and a rifle. Maybe he had an invisible suit? Or perhaps he used some top-secret cloaking device? It’s not like someone walking around with a gun and rangefinder should raise any red flags. No, it’s perfectly normal for the elite team tasked with protecting the President just to let someone like that slip through their fingers.
When they finally “found” Crooks, he had climbed the warehouse roof. Remember, according to the Secret Service, a three-man counter-sniper team is set up in that same warehouse. Everyone knows you can hear a squirrel on a metal roof, but the team below Crooks couldn't hear him on the roof.
Evidently, a police officer saw him on the roof and confronted him, but Crooks pointed his weapon, causing the officer to duck and fall off the roof. The officer’s radio call about "an individual on the roof with a weapon" apparently didn’t warrant immediate evacuation of President Trump. Because, of course, why would it?
Of course, local law enforcement body cameras cannot confirm these facts because … are you ready for this? … According to Tom Fitton, the Butler County sheriffs were not wearing body cameras. How strange is it that a key law enforcement agency did not have its responding officers equipped with body cameras? Nothing to worry about here… we’re sure this is just a coincidence.
And the roof? Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle later explained the lack of a sniper team on the roof by saying it was “sloped” and dangerous.
Clearly, the Secret Service isn't trained for such perilous conditions as a mildly sloped roof. Who needs them taking a bullet for the President when they could slip on a roof, right? And who needs the pesky facts that the Secret Service was already stationed on a roof with a 14.04° pitch, and the pitch of the warehouse roof was only 4.76°? And we just learned that, according to Senator Josh Hawley on X, “Whistleblowers tell me that MOST of Trump’s security detail working the event last Saturday were not even Secret Service. DHS assigned unprepared and inexperienced personnel.” Maybe that’s why she feared putting them on a sloped roof…
According to Matt Wallace, the parents of Crooks called police hours before the shooting to report that he was missing with an AR-15. And let's not forget that Crooks wasn’t even good enough to make his high school rifle team. But, hey, no biggie. It’s totally understandable, right? Because obviously, shooting in a high school competition is way more intense than sneaking onto a roof, evading the Secret Service and police, and taking a shot at the President with snipers all around. Yeah, right. Because, you know, nothing says “elite assassin” like failing to qualify for a high school team.
Crooks also supposedly managed to whip up a high-tech remote-controlled explosive device without ever bothering to search "explosive devices" on the internet and without leaving any significant internet footprint or catching the attention of law enforcement. Quite a feat for someone with such a mundane background, right? Because nothing about this whole story screams "cover-up" at all. Nope, not one bit.
OK, enough sarcasm; let’s look at some anomalies and ask some questions…
ANOMALIES & QUESTIONS: We just discussed the slope of the warehouse roof. From the videos, it appears that if Crooks was positioned where we see him, the 4.76° pitch might have obstructed his line of sight to President Trump. Check out this video and decide for yourself.
Thanks to Ivory Hecker for this video on Instagram.
Oh, here’s a real gem. The Secret Service claims there was a counter-sniper team stationed in a second-story window of the very warehouse where Crooks was supposedly perched. Minor hiccup, though … That warehouse doesn’t even have a second-story window. But guess what? The adjacent building does, giving them a perfect view of Crooks.
Thanks to In2ThinAir for the above video on X.
The video above claims that Crooks was merely a distraction, the “magician’s assistant” in this elaborate trick, while the real shooter was possibly on the water tower. Was Crooks the decoy, the sleight of hand to keep you from noticing the real threat? Let’s go down the rabbit hole a bit, shall we? This video below was shot by General Eric on the way to the Trump rally. You can clearly see an SUV parked under the water tower.
Thanks to General Eric on X
You may be thinking, “There was an SUV parked under the water tower. So what?” Videos that indicate someone was on the water tower have been circulating, but we haven’t included them because they are very grainy and don’t help much. However, several witnesses corroborated that they saw someone on the tower. And here’s a video of an eyewitness stating that someone on the water tower got shot and killed by a sharpshooter. In the words of Johnny Carson, “this is wild, weird stuff.”
Mike Adams, the “Health Ranger,” has done an amazing job of dissecting the audio file in today’s episode of Brighteon Broadcast News. The section you want to watch is from about 11 minutes to 48 minutes. In his analysis, Adams proves that shots 1 through 5 were taken from approximately 400-500 feet away, which is consistent with either Crooks on the warehouse roof OR another sniper team set up very close to Crooks. Shot 6 was taken from approximately 600-800 feet away, and shot 7 was taken from approximately 1100-1500 feet away.
Utilizing Google Earth, the water tower appears to be approximately 750 feet away. So was the 6th shot taken from the water tower? And from where was the 7th shot taken? Why are we not hearing about the investigation of the person shot on the water tower? Was there another shooter on the tower? Whose SUV was parked at the base of the tower? All questions that need to be addressed and answered.
According to Tony Seruga, a lifetime data scientist and CIA/NSA contractor, “We have tracked the black SUV that had picked up our phantom water tower sniper ... With 100% confidence, based on cell phone data, that particular sniper was FBI and the SUV was registered to the Department of Agriculture.” Is Seruga correct? Was there another shooter on the tower?
That’s not the only report of a possible second shooter. Here’s a video that sure does look and sound like there was a second shooter in the crowd. Keep in mind that this video is on Trump's left side, whereas the warehouse is on Trump’s right side.
Thanks to John Cullen for this video on X.
And here’s a video of a female attendee who heard the shots in the above video and is 100% sure that they came from the left of Trump.
Why have we not heard anything about this? It seems evident that more investigation is needed. But apparently, the FBI disagrees because, within 24 hours, FBI investigators stated that Crooks acted alone. Isn’t it amazing that they can do a thorough background check and speak to every known associate of Crooks within a day and conclude that he acted alone? The FBI sure does act fast!
Except for when they took 7 years to conclude the 2001 anthrax attack investigation… and um… when they took 3 years to determine that McVeigh and Nichols had acted alone in the Oklahoma City bombing from 1995. (By the way, there’s an eye-opening chapter on the Oklahoma City bombing in our book, Monumental Myths.)
Back to the FBI. Here is a photo of the FBI cleaning up (destroying) the crime scene where the shooter allegedly opened fire to assassinate President Trump and was quickly shot by a Secret Service sniper. Of course, the FBI may have gotten all the blood and fibers (and brass?) they needed for their investigation, so this might be nothing ….
What about that lady sitting behind Trump in the black hat? We’ve all seen the video. It went viral because when the shooting started, she stayed calm and began to film. There's nothing strange about that, right? Some are speculating that this woman is FBI Assistant Director Janeen Diguiseppi.
The FBI has categorically denied that the woman in the video is Assistant Director DiGuiseppi. OK, I guess we should believe the FB”Lie” … sorry FBI … because they’ve never been dishonest or hidden evidence before, right? They’ve never been accused of being corrupt, have they?
Anyone recall the Hunter Biden laptop circus? Just weeks before the 2020 election, the FBI had the laptop in their possession but decided to play hide-and-seek with it so it wouldn't damage the Biden campaign. Because, you know, transparency is overrated.
Yep, this is the same FBI that helped rig the 2020 election. The very same FBI that orchestrated the Oklahoma City bombing (and let’s not forget Merrick Garland was the judge on that one). And, of course, it's the same FBI that executed Randy Weaver’s wife and unborn child at Ruby Ridge.
Oh yeah, we almost forgot, the FBI just declined a request by Congress for FBI Director Christopher Wray to testify next week about the attempted assassination of President Trump. I guess he’s too busy…
And then there’s the cell phone evidence. Congressman Mike Waltz indicated that according to an FBI briefing, Crooks had three encrypted accounts overseas. Yes, you read that right. A 20-year-old with an associate’s degree and a mundane background was actually a “digital Houdini” with multiple overseas cell phone accounts. Seriously? Are we supposed to believe that Crooks was some kind of lone-wolf tech genius? This has “patsy” written all over it.
There were multiple videos of Crooks on the roof allegedly firing, so why is there no video of the muzzle flash from Crooks’ AR-15? Where’s the brass from the roof? And what caliber is the bullet that hit Trump? The trajectory should lead straight to the bullet, shouldn’t it? Where are the ballistics reports? This is imperative information. Where is it?
More anomalies, countless threads, and loose ends beg to be unraveled, but we'll stop here for the sake of time and pertinence. We need to get this article published and illuminate the inconsistencies and unanswered questions to spark the necessary scrutiny and investigation that this situation desperately demands.
CONCLUSION: Regarding the attempted assassination of President Trump, we are left with a multitude of questions, an ocean of anomalies, and an ever-growing pile of evidence that suggests not all is as it seems. Were there multiple shooters? Was there “inside” involvement? Were certain companies tipped off about an “event” on Saturday, July 13? We must demand answers to these questions because the official story simply doesn’t add up.
Think about it: Crooks somehow evades a highly trained Secret Service team, sneaks onto a warehouse roof unnoticed, and manages to fire shots at the President despite being on law enforcement’s radar for over an hour. And to top it all off, local law enforcement officers weren’t wearing body cameras on that crucial day. Moreover, the financial “bets” placed just a day before the Trump rally are too coincidental to ignore.
And let’s not forget that President Trump has promised multiple times to dismantle the so-called “deep state.” It certainly appears that this shadowy network could be involved in the attempt on his life. The timing and circumstances surrounding the assassination attempt are just too coincidental, raising serious questions about whether this was a desperate move by the “deep state” to protect its own interests and maintain its grip on power.
We love President Trump and this country. We will not stop asking these questions until we get satisfactory answers. We owe it to ourselves and our children to, in President Trump's iconic words, “fight… fight… fight.”